Within the Glass House, appreciation is becoming one of our most powerful tools for transformation and one of the key ingredients to the transformation our clients are reporting. 

“It has allowed me to grow both personally and professionally in a way that no other leadership training has done before. Skilled coaching has given space to think and reflect but also provided high degrees of challenge. This has facilitated such powerful growth.”

Glass House Client, 2023

Why? Because it allows us to see the growth and its inevitable cracks in the journey until now, allowing us to clean up our past. The present, because it allows us to sense at a deeper level, experience the texture of the moment and the nuance of energy in each connection we make, waking up to what is here and how we got here. And the future, because it allows us to sense the direction we should be heading, what draws us closer to it and how we need to grow up if we are to show up as the greatest expression of our true self.

I also believe that it is one type of fuel that truly ignites transformation. For transformation to occur there are three stages.

1. State - if you are not in the state physiologically and psychologically you will not be seeking to make sense of the world (translate), but fight or avoid it. 

2. Translate - interpreting what you are experiencing and shaping your lens on the world. 

3. Transform - shifting that lens to a new one and it remaining in this new form.

Much like going to the gym, if you are not in the state to go, it is unlikely that you will see the value in the experience, not engage and therefore not transform physically. Yet if you are in a state of appreciating the experience, despite the inevitable struggle, you will show up consistently and transform yourself and see the value in your growth and therefore self. This creates a positive feedback loop that informs your decision to go next time the alarm goes off. Appreciation shows up in the stages of state, translation and transformation. 

State

For your mind to be ready for rewiring and to have the energy to catalyze and sustain momentum we need to be in a positive emotional state. If we are not, then our prefrontal lobe remains shut down and dictated by a fight, flight, freeze neural networks that are already embedded or our whole system runs out of energy to function effectively. 

At earlier stages of development, the external environment largely dictates our internal state as we tune into the climate in order to belong and establish ourselves. Yet, no matter what stage of development we are at, given the tools we can shift this state ourselves. We know this is true because we have practiced it with our own children and those within our evidenced based wellbeing curriculums built on a decade of research in positive psychology and more recent work on polyvagal theory. Appreciation practices is one of the quickest ways to return to this positive internal state that, with practice, can be maintained despite the external environment rather than being dependent on it. 

Translate

Translating when ‘Waking up’ allows us to make sense of new experiences we are exposed to and how we perceive them to be.

Translating when cleaning up is the practice that allows us to appreciate those who have benefited and limited us along our journey to now and see both as conditioning in order to get us to this point, but allows us to not be defined by it from this moment. This is a humbling practice as it begins to allow us to take responsibility for who we are at this moment and self-author our next step. This can be overwhelming to begin with, but appreciation practice allows us to ride this wave by recognising its passing.

If we were to approach this work with aggression, it would only enrage the internal and external voices that have been shaping us until now and are fear based. Our internal voices are borne from the peak and darkest experiences of the past but show up as shadows representing fear, protection, skepticism, control, desire and seeking to name a few. Yet if we can do this with appreciation, we can begin to see the light and dark of both the peak and shadow experiences and therefore have compassion for each of those voices and the wisdom that each one brings. This is internal perspective taking, and doing this consciously allows us to become conscious of when the internal voices are speaking or those external voices that may still be influencing us. 

The capability to take different perspectives is strongly correlated with ego maturity and is the pathway to seeing the world with a compassionate lens, making us less reactive and more curious to what we and others are projecting. The more we practice this, the more we can reframe each moment to be an opportunity as opposed to an obstacle. Reframing the data we are receiving allows us to maintain growth through what would have previously been perceived as resistance. Appreciation practice allows us to hold the space and energy for the voices of the imposter that often shout when not heard. It also allows us to value who we truly are and become more comfortable with owning what we need to do to grow ourselves to the next level. 

Transform

The more trained we become at shifting our state and translating what has triggered it, the better we begin to be at observing ourselves with more clarity. We become comfortable with internal and external feedback shining a light on our shadow without being triggered, allowing us to move this from a subjective experience, to an objective experience. At earlier stages of human development this means becoming conscious of our impulses and desires and then considering how they impact our interpersonal relationships. At later stages, this allows us to reconsider our identity and take multiple forms that can consciously converse with each other, internally and externally, allowing us to become self-transformational, consciously shifting how we are showing up according to the context, not being dictated by it. 

With each stage of development, no matter what line of development we are considering, we also have to appreciate that we have grown up and shown up in a new way, with more sophisticated nuance. The space for metacognition allows us to reflect and reinforce the neural pathways that this growth, despite the struggle, has been worth it and that we are adding value by consciously growing up and showing up, and so are others, whether conscious of it or not. This raises our final point on this; truly appreciating others is key to shifting them into their own state for waking up and growing up allows us to create the external context that is shaping their perception of self. This connecting experience is also reciprocal and reinforces the value of the relationship and therefore the trust that exists. This is essential for evolving yourself, your community and the integrated systems you live through and create as a collective.

Returning to our metaphor of going to the gym, this kind of waking up, cleaning up, growing up or showing up can be done by yourself, but can be accelerated by having the right coach to support your own and your team’s state, provide the frameworks to translate your journey and embed common language, and the tools to both navigate and take your next step. 

Contact us if you wish to enquire about appreciating the transformation of yourself and others, and if not spend five minutes reflecting and appreciating your own journey and what shadow may be preventing you from reaching your full potential.